


on every inch we'll carve his name

by goodshipophelia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:09:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodshipophelia/pseuds/goodshipophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Republic military funerals never included music, but what do they know anyway.</p>
<p>(Poe Dameron has a guitar and a lot of ghosts.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	on every inch we'll carve his name

Poe's _abuelo_ would have called the instrument _una vihuela_. Poe would too, if it were his, but every time the worn wood catches the light he can only hear Muran's voice calling it a gittern, his incurably provincial (lilting, charming) Corellian accent making the word sound like a smile. X-wing pilots don't often leave much behind, so it's good that Poe gets to keep both - Muran's gittern and something like his slow, secretive smiles.

And his music, Poe gets to keep that too. Muran's grandmothers taught him all the old Corellian sailing songs: the sad ones, the funny ones, the lewd ones. The defiant ones, too, with rhythms that demanded the heart keep on beating no matter what. Songs for drinking and working and living in uncertain times.

Poe Dameron doesn't sing when he's in the sky. He loses the rhythm, the key, still trying to harmonize with a voice that isn't there. Black Leader is better at minimizing comms chatter than Lt. Commander Dameron of Rapier Squadron ever was.

The Resistance is used to pieces going missing, or as used to it as anyone really wants to get. There's even a ritual of sorts to it: the smoke from the (empty, mostly, space battles never leave much behind) pyres rising and mixing with the fumes of whatever it is the X-Wing techs have been distilling in the corner of the hangar. It's not the honour guards and empty coffins and empty words draped in the New Republic flag and _how could they call him a hero and in the next breath order Poe to drop it, to ignore the First Order as a threat --_

New Republic military funerals don't have any music, either. Their loss - enough species use it to memorialize their dead that someone's always going to offer a song or an ode or a traditional drum pattern carried with them halfway across the galaxy.

After Starkiller it should be different, chaos, but the Resistance is at war, and war always leaves its own strange pockets of calm. The loss of a legend leaves a hole. Not at Leia's side - the General has never seemed anything other than self-contained - but on the edges, like everyone is expecting a glimpse of grey hair and Corellian blood stripes, a crude toast and a flash of aging flyboy grin.

Poe wishes he were more lost, wishes it wasn't all so familiar, wishes Ello were still here to offer one of his throaty Abednedo funeral dirges, misses the way his split respiratory system let him harmonize with himself, misses - it's half of Blue squadron and nearly two thirds of Red and they completed the mission but they're still gone, and Han's absence is just everywhere and before Poe knows it Muran's gittern is in his hands.

From the next bonfire over someone's singing an old tune from Alderaan. (All the songs from Alderaan are old now, even when the last of her scattered children lift their voices to sing a new song there is something always already ancient, dying.) And it's probably a terrible idea but Poe can see General Organa, his general, in his mind's eye and all he can think is that for his talk of running Han Solo was a general too and when Poe settles his fingers on the frets he can feel Muran's over his, laying out chords one by one. He opens his mouth meaning to play something lewd or funny or lighthearted for Han Solo, legendary smuggler and scoundrel, but then Leia's there on the other side of the fire and what comes out instead is ...

'General Taylor gained the day,  
Walk him along, John,  
Carry him along ...'

[listen to the song here](https://youtu.be/WYo6KqaSd3o)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic, so be gentle? I have no bloody idea if Corellia even has oceans, let alone a sailing culture somewhat akin to Newfoundland. Muran's name and position in Rapier Squadron are borrowed from Greg Rucka's _Before the Awakening_. His string instrument is my own invention.
> 
> The song is General Taylor by Great Big Sea, in case you need to search for it separately if the link doesn't work or something. At least 70% of the blame for this nonsense falls to Great Big Sea, and I own nothing and make no profit from this, etc etc. Thank you to boyvandals and inkrush81 for beta assistance.


End file.
